Ultrasound imaging is a medical imaging technique for imaging organs and soft tissues in a human body. Ultrasound imaging uses real time, non-invasive high frequency sound waves to produce two-dimensional (2D) and/or three-dimensional (3D) images.
In some instances, measures may be taken to enhance ultrasound images. For example, ultrasound image quality may be enhanced by adjusting such things as overall gain, time gain compensation (TGC), lateral gain compensation (LGC), dynamic range, frequency, etc. In this regard, time gain compensation (TGC) may be applied to ultrasound images, to enhance image quality, by accounting for attenuation caused by tissues being imaged. By increasing received signal intensity with depth, artifacts in the uniformity of image intensity may be reduced. Further, LGC can be used to enhance the image quality by adjusting gain setting as a function of lateral scan position.
In many ultrasound systems enhancing image quality may typically be done based on user input and/or interactions. For example, to get optimum image quality the user may have to adjust several controls (e.g., controls relating to overall gain, TGC, LGC, dynamic range, frequency, etc.) Reaching an optimum arrangement of the controls may require significant interactions between the user and this system. Undertaking such extensive interactions may be uncomfortable and/or time-consuming, and as a result users may forgo attempts to identify these optimum arrangements, and consequently would not truly optimize the images as often and simply work with less optimal images.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.